Other Poetry Workshops

Other Poetry Workshops

In addition to giving poetry readings, the following are selected activities and workshops I can provide relating to poetry, including and other than haiku. Most of these presentations include handouts, and some include a PowerPoint presentation.

Poetry Readings — I can provide poetry readings focusing on my haiku, tanka, translations, longer poetry (serious and humourous), or in any combination, and can combine readings of my poetry, or the poetry of others, with workshops and panel discussions. To see examples of my poetry, please visit the following pages: Collaborations, Haibun, Haiga, Haiku and Senryu, Poems, Rengay, Sequences, and Translations.

Poetry Walks — I am experienced at leading outdoor nature walks to inspire poetry, as well as in indoor or urban settings, such as in art galleries to generate ekphrastic poetry in response to artwork.

“Ten Ways to Improve Your Poetry with Haiku” — A sampling of haiku techniques and how these techniques can be applied to longer poetry (and even fiction) to add extra depth and variety. Includes the use of concrete sensory imagery, the difference between observation and inference, immediacy and accessibility, formal devices, form, seasonal references, juxtaposition, and more.

“E. E. Cummings Master Class” — An all-day or multiple-evening class that explores the poetry of E. E. Cummings (find out why I’m actually capitalizing that correctly), divided into such categories as sonnets, love poems, visual/concrete poems, political poems, poems about childhood, and more, plus a session for writing similar poems of your own.

“To Say the Least: An Introduction to Short Poetry Forms” — A taste of such forms as haiku, senryu, tanka, triolet, cinquain, double dactyls, and much more, with example poems, and time to try writing them ourselves. With optional sharing and discussion.

“One Hundred Poets” — An introduction to the poems and poets of the classic Japanese text, the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, made popular in Japan by a card game played every New Year, using translations from 100 Poets: Passions of the Imperial Court (Tokyo: PIE Books, 2008), which I cotranslated with Emiko Miyashita. Includes a translation of ours that appeared on the back of 150,000,000 U.S. postage stamps in 2012. Can be tailored to focus on love poems, poems of Japanese geographical or cultural interest, or other topics (limited by the poems themselves).

“The Seed of the Human Heart: Introducing Tanka” — Most people know haiku, but what is tanka? Tanka helped to spawn haiku, yet has a history that’s almost a thousand years older. This overview of the history and techniques of tanka poetry includes time for writing and sharing/feedback. In 2000, I founded the Tanka Society of America, the first and largest tanka organization outside Japan.